Voices
by sueinnm
Summary: Imprisoned on a barren moon, Loki is prepared to live out his sentence alone . But soon he's haunted by the voices of those he hurt during the invasion of earth, and is forced to confront the brutal consequences of his mad ambition. An AU story set between The Avengers and the early events of Thor: The Dark World, written in early 2013. "Loki's Redemption" part 5.
1. Chapter 1

The voices.

They were seldom quiet, and they never ceased. They came to Loki by day, when he paced his cell, and by night, when he sought to capture a few desperate moments of sleep before they started again.

He wondered if it was part of the punishment his once-father had set him, Odin and all the others who had stood in council to sentence him. Sometimes, to quiet the voices, he remembered the day he had been condemned, and wondered what he had missed in the setting of his punishment. Like tonight, when the low and high and crying and wailing and pleading voices left him with nothing but a handful of concrete memories to give him some hold on sanity.

If he had ever been sane.

He had been defiant when Thor had taken him back to Asgard, clinging to the rags of his pride, unable to conceal his hatred and resentment and contempt for the mortal warriors who thought themselves his equals. If they had defeated him, it was because he had failed to plan carefully enough. Because he had been too cautious. Too cowardly to grasp what he deserved with both hands and never let go.

And this was what his caution and cowardice had bought him. This cell, where time had no meaning but what he made for himself, where the last words he had heard were his brother's: "Farewell. For now."

Because Thor believed his brother—his adopted, _jotun_ brother-could somehow redeem himself and one day be free. There were times, like today, when Loki could only laugh scornfully, berate himself for admitting, just before the cell door closed, that he loved his brother in return. Puling, childish sentiment.

He sat at his desk, turning the immense book to the next page. _A Complete History of Midgard_, by some obscure Asgardian scholar or other. Loki had never studied much of Earth's history, and that had been another serious error. He and Thor had received instruction on the dominant cultures in each of the Realms, but Midgard had merited scant attention. It was, after all, a primitive place, with little to recommend its inhabitants, who were very fond of slaughtering each other in droves, and no possible threat to Asgard.

Asgard had suffered its own internecine conflicts involving the deaths of thousands, but not since mankind had first developed brains complex enough to make weapons sufficient to bring down a slow-moving beast. For thousands of years, all Asgardian warfare had been with other Realms or threats from beyond.

Loki had made too many assumptions about Midgardians, vastly underestimating how stubbornly and courageously they could fight when they were threatened. Not only the so-called Avengers, but others of no great power. Like Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D..

"_You lack conviction_," Coulson had said as he lay dying, just before he'd blasted Loki with a weapon of unanticipated efficacy. Had that been Loki's problem, then? Lack of conviction? That he could not truly _see_ himself on a throne at the heart of Midgard, with all mankind on its knees before him?

Strange that he had only been able to recognize now, in retrospect, that Coulson had truly been a worthy foe in his own right. That he might have had some wisdom that Loki himself ….

Loki closed his eyes. Once the picture had been so clear. Now it was blurred, like the faint images that appeared on the frosted wall of his prison when Thor came to deliver Loki's monthly quota of food, drink and "entertainment." It had been his decision to saddle Loki with the _Complete History_, but Loki had been too desperate for mental stimulation to reject it. The simple knowledge that Thor had chosen it and brought it himself was its own comfort, even if it was his way of rubbing Loki's nose in the events on Midgard, of teaching a naughty child a lesson, somewhat less severe than being exiled powerless to Midgard, as Odin's son had been.

Or was it?

The voices started again, and Loki nearly crushed his skull between the palms of his hands. It did no good. The voices did not come from outside himself. They continued to beg and plead and cry for mercy. Mercy he no longer had the power to grant them.

"Kneel," he had commanded. And they had knelt, the sheep, until the one had stood and defied him. For a few seconds.

"_Not to men like you."_

Loki dropped his hands and rested his forehead against the desk. Men like him. He'd had a notion, then, of what the old man had referred to—memories of the old lessons-but the words had meant nothing to him. Human dictators were as nothing, their actions unimportant and long past in terms of mortal history.

Loki had thought himself long past any real feeling for the suffering of others, particularly a lesser race like the inhabitants of Earth. He had hardly considered the subject at all, once he had been shown for what _he_ was. Shown again, and again, and again.

But this book ….

A mortal called Elie Wiesel had written of the deaths of millions in camps run by the mortal monster Captain America had spoken of when he had shielded the old man in Stuttgart. Asgard had ever been a monarchy, no stranger to absolute rule. But this Hitler …

"_I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation_," Wiesel had written. "_We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented_."

The old man in Stuttgart had not spoken those words, but that had been his meaning. "_Men like you_." He'd had this courage, not to be silent. To take a side against the tormentor.

Loki slammed his fist on the book, cracking the spine. But his keepers would not give him another soon, so he pushed it aside and gave way to the voices that would not be silenced.

#

"_Why_?"

The man was not nearly as large as Volstagg, but he had something of that warrior's character in his expression, as if he had spent a great deal of time jesting and laughing and partaking of more than his share of meals and mead. He wore what mortals referred to as "coveralls", smudged with stains of grease and other unknown substances, and his face was unshaven.

"_I worked hard_," the man said. "_Every day. Got up at five. At work by six-thirty. Beth … that's my wife … she always had breakfast ready for me, even when I told her I could take care of it myself. And my little girl …_" His eyes filled with pride. "_My little Amy. Such a fighter, like her Ma. Wouldn't back down to nobody, even when she was six_." The man's smile faded. "_But I was in one of them buildings those aliens attacked, fixing some pipes. Roof came down on my head. Never saw it coming._" He scratched his short, graying hair. "_Why'd you do that? I never did nothing to you. I tried to be a good Pa, a good husband. You took that away. Why_?"

Loki beat his head against the desk, and the man, and his voice, vanished. Blood dripped on the slick, hard surface. Loki let it fall unheeded.

Blood. How much had he caused to be shed?

_Only mortal blood_, he told himself, for the hundredth time. For the thousandth. _It is of no importance_. How much Jotun blood had Odin shed? And Thor, who had slain as many foes as his father? Asgard dominated all the Realms save Midgard. Why not one more?

"_Why_?" came a softer voice, a mortal girl's, childish and yet unafraid. Angry. "_Why did you kill my Daddy_?"

Shivering, though the cell itself was neither cold nor warm, Loki stalked to his comfortless bed and lay down on his back, his arm thrown over his eyes. For a while the voices went away. The pain in his head was slight, but it distracted him. From the words he had read. From the pleas and sorrow, so much worse than the hatred.

Hatred he could accept. He could laugh at it.

But not this.

Not when he heard in that child's voice the echo of his own.

He slept for a while, or so he thought. But then came the dreams. The dreams of destruction, of fire and smoke and great ships segmented like some grotesque offspring of insect and serpent, spitting out savages Loki had despised even as he had used them. Used them to kill, unaware and uncaring of their actions as long as they did his bidding while he dealt with the unexpected and unwelcome threat of the Avengers and their ridiculous flying fortress.

_Natasha Romanov_. He'd seen himself reflected in her eyes for a few moments during their exchange on the helicarrier. A ledger dripping with red. Cold, calculating, her purpose set.

Until it had seemed he'd broken her, revealed a vulnerability he could turn against her. And yet it was she who exposed _him_, and laughed at him for being so easily tricked.

He saw her now, in the dream, beautiful and flame-haired, her full lips curved up in mocking satisfaction. He saw himself walking through the transparent walls of his temporary prison, catching her by the arm, nearly twisting it from its socket.

"Do you dare to mock me?" he asked.

She resisted, eyes ablaze, but even her skill was no match for his jotun strength.

"_As a matter of fact, I do_," she said, ceasing her struggles. "_I'm not like Tony when it comes to witty repartee, but you're so over-the-top it's like talking to a cartoon villain. It's just too easy_."

He twisted her arm with a little more force, just short of breaking it. "As easy as it was to kill at the behest of others, for the scant reward of wealth? Or the thrill of taking a life? A hundred lives?"

She smiled with those enticing lips. "_But it stops being thrilling, doesn't it?_" she said. "_You get your throne, everybody falls on their knees, and … then what? I know what you are. You'll get bored very fast. Bringing the whole world under your heel, issuing edicts, sending these Chitauri to enforce your will … where do you go from there, an egotist like you, who has to have his finger in every pie_?" She stretched toward him, though the movement must have given her more pain. "_Fury thinks you kill for fun. But I don't think that's true. It's not the kill. It's this sucking need in you, to know you hold the power of life and death over creatures so inferior to yourself._" She cocked her head. "_But it's really you who feels inferior, isn't it? What made you that way, I wonder? What made you feel so small inside that you had to prove you could be the boot to the ant_?"

And then she kissed him, hard, biting into his lower lip with enough force to draw blood. And he'd kissed her with equal violence, because everything she said was true, because they both had those bloody ledgers they could never erase. And his would become far bloodier than hers before it was finished.

"_Think_," she said, pulling back, panting and flushed. "_Maybe you can keep a few pages of that ledger clean_."


	2. Chapter 2

Loki woke with a start, his lip still throbbing. The blood on his forehead was dry. He rolled off the bed and began to pace again, measuring out the width of the cell, back and forth, back and forth, always the same pattern. He paused to carry out the exercises he did daily to maintain his strength and muscle tone, assuming the various positions of his own arts of battle, throwing imaginary knives and wielding an imaginary scepter. He applied the ointment that kept his face free of the stubble he so disliked, determined not to become the prisoner sunk so deeply in his own despair that he no longer cared for his appearance. He had no means of cutting his hair, but he kept it clean and out of the way.

He sat at the desk again, his eyes burning with the lack of sleep. He opened the book to another page. The chapter, densely illustrated by an artist of some skill, covered the period in Midgard's history known as the Great War. The first so-called World War. Only the first of many. He'd simply had no interest in the details.

Now he was interested, and almost appalled at the mindless destruction. The sheer waste of forces on both sides of the conflict, the futile courage, the sickness, the stench of desperation, all over insignificant patches of territory that made an anthill seem like a mountain.

If _he_ had come to rule Midgard, Loki told himself, all such petty conflicts would cease. The freedom to make war would be erased along with so-called "free will." The lives his attempted conquest had taken would be more than recompensed by those saved at his command.

"_The war was a mirror; it reflected man's every virtue and every vice, and if you looked closely, like an artist at his drawings, it showed up both with unusual clarity_."

The man's name had been Charles Grosz. He had been a soldier in the "Great War." And he had opposed Hitler, like Elie Wiesel.

Loki laughed. Virtues and vices. Humans were roiling cauldrons of contradiction. And he .. He saw too much of himself in them. Far too much.

_I am nothing like them_.

He got up again and walked himself to exhaustion. But the more desperately he needed rest, the fewer defenses he had against the voices. He paused again to lean against the wall, gritting his teeth. Listening.

The woman wore a neat and very plain suit, with a tailored jacket and trousers. Her face was not beautiful, but it was not unpleasant, and her hair, a very unremarkable shade of brown, had been neatly trimmed around her oval face.

"_Why did you kill me_?" she asked, nothing but gentle query in her voice. "_I never hurt anyone. I never dreamed they'd think I was good enough, but they were actually considering promoting me. It took me such a long time to believe in myself. Why did you take that away?"_

Loki found himself on the floor, knees to chest and arms wrapped around them tightly, like the child left alone because Mother had important business, Father had no time for him and Thor had gone off with his friends to play at being great warriors. Something Loki would never be.

_I never dreamed they'd think I was good enough._

With frantic intensity, Loki reconsidered every possible means of silencing the voices, and his own mind, permanently. He was willing to take almost any steps but the one his captors had apparently not thought of; choking himself on the pages of the book.

He refused to die so ignominiously. He would never give them the satisfaction.

So he rested his chin on his knees and thought on things that would make him angry enough to drive the voices away. He remembered the child again, the child he had been. The shadow. The watcher. The invisible listener, because when he was with his elder brother, he was all but unnoticed by everyone he passed.

Cruelty came on thoughtless footsteps, dogging at his heels when Thor was too intent on some warlike amusement to notice. Small things-whispers, muffled laughs, talk of the one who was surely never destined to become a warrior like his brother, like all who aspired to find honor in Asgard. He was a prince, and so could not openly be mocked. But he heard the voices, and he never forgot them.

There had been kindness then, too, in bits and snatches. From Fandral, on occasion, when all of them were young—Fandral, who was always merry and seldom carried a grudge. Volstagg had been wont to make a few jokes at Loki's expense, but never with cruelty. Not until they were older, and the big warrior became impatient with Loki's "devious" ways.

There had been others, flitting in and out of his life when Thor chanced to step out of the way. Thor, too … from him, there had been a rude affection, unthinking laughter, and a protectiveness Loki had grown to resent even as he recognized Thor's thoughtless devotion to his only sibling.

And Frigga. Frigga the gentle, Frigga the wise, who seemed to see all and yet judged none. She had loved him, the one love he had known was true and abiding, no matter what pranks he pulled to draw some attention away from his glorious brother. She had played at draughts with him, read the old books with him, encouraged him to hone his skills in what mortals called "magic."

But from his father … from Odin … nothing. Not after childhood was done, and boys were boys no longer but must take their places as true princes of Asgard. And even after Loki was acknowledged in his new rank and walked beside Thor as his supposed equal, he still saw the looks, heard the voices , knew every god and courtier and guard in the place thought him unworthy to be one of Odin's heirs.

_He is different. He is a liar. He cannot be trusted. He is the worm in the apple. Only look at him, and you will see._

Thor never heard the murmuring or noticed the looks. _His_ life was as it should be. _He_ had been given what was his by right, and he was more than content. Battles, tournaments, games of chance, women—all his for the winning whenever he chose. And men lost to him gladly, out of love for the golden son of Odin.

But if Loki won … why, then it must be by trickery, by illusion, by lies.

So he became what they expected of him. Pranks became less like jests and more like vengeance. And he became adept at being somewhere else when the schemes played out. When on those rare occasions he was caught, Thor made light of it and threw his muscular arm over Loki's shoulders and laughed. "Up to the old games, I see, little brother," he would say. And Loki would smile and nod, as if he had never thought of his machinations as anything else.

Countless times they had ridden together into battle. They had fought the jotuns, the dark elves, any force that would threaten Asgard or its people or its throne. Loki had become adept at a warrior's skills—not of brute strength, but of speed and subtlety and grace, expertise with knife and short spear, darting in and out before any blow could touch him. And it was he who threw up the illusions and conjured cover when Thor went too far and drew every enemy down upon his head.

Again and again the princes returned, covered in glory. Glory for Thor, and the leavings for his brother, save for an occasional pat on the head from Fandral or a slap on the back from Volstagg, especially when the big man was drunk.

"_Some do battle, others only do tricks._" And then a broad hand gripping Loki's neck, grins exchanged, a moment of unsullied affection, when Loki had loved his brother with all his heart. And learned to adapt a lightness of manner, a quickness of wit meant to amuse rather than vex. Not once did he forget the voices, the whispers of his childhood.

But _they_ began to forget. _They_ began to consider him fit to be in their company, if only because he had finally proven some right to stand beside his brother in battle. And because sometimes he made them chuckle, or impressed them with his casual jests. When they mocked him to his face, he laughed.

The voices in his head now never laughed. How he hated them.

"_Why did you kill me_?"

The anger hadn't worked. They were still there. Loki looked up, and he saw the one who spoke. An elderly woman with rich brown skin, her face deeply lined, her mouth twisted in contempt.

"_Why_?" she demanded, thrusting her short chin toward him with the pugnacity of a Midgardian bulldog. "_I lived a long life. Sure I did. But I wasn't ready to go yet. I had grandkids. I sang in the choir. I had plenty of years left, stuff to do. Hell, I may have been old as fuck, but I sure had fun_." Her eyes narrowed, and her smile became mocking. "_You aren't even grown up, are you? Some kind of god you are_." She snorted. "_You need to go back to god-school, because you have a helluva lot to learn about people. I mean people, son. All kinds of people. We're all the same, Mr. High-and-Mighty. Time you learned that before someone else gets hurt."_

Her voice broke off abruptly. Loki stared into the space where she seemed to have stood. _We're all the same_. But that was a lie. His own life had proven it. The Other had proven it. Pain had proven it. Again and again and again.

The old bitch had mocked him, like Natasha Romanov. _A boy_, she'd said, as if he were not her senior by millennia. But there had been something in her he could find to respect. It didn't come easily, that respect. It was, quite frankly, unnatural. And yet it was as true, because she'd fought her extinction with the fire of her belief in herself. Her own worthiness to survive.

Loki dragged his sleeve over his eyes. Curse all mortals to their everlasting Hell. They had no business …

Dying. Dying so easily. Falling like wooden figures built merely for practice at arms, never meant to last.

He returned to the desk and read. The Underground Railroad during the American Civil War. The My Lai massacre. The struggles of a man called Gandhi. The "ethnic cleansing" of the Bosnian War. Always, that human curiosity, resilience, courage, viciousness, hatred, cruelty, joy. And the constant search for meaning.

How many hundreds of years had Loki searched for meaning, and never found it? How much less time had these mortals to make sense of their lives?

He closed the book, dropping his head onto his crossed arms. He slept again. The voices let him be. He remembered nothing of his dreams. He counted what he believed to be many days with only blessed silence for company. And he read. He read until he had committed the entire book of mortal history to memory.

"_Daddy issues_," Tony Stark said, standing behind the bar with the drink in his hand. "_We both have that little problem in common, don't we? Along with the lack of a functioning heart_." He downed his drink and poured another. "_We never really did get to finish our conversation, Reindeer Games. Back in the day, I might have used you as a weapons designer. You're smart enough. But you can't be trusted with dangerous toys. You still don't know they can blow up in your face_."

Loki grinned. "You're clever for a mortal, Stark. I might have used you to polish my boots."

"_Huh_." Stark swirled the alcohol around in his glass, pretending to be fascinated by the rich amber color. "_You know, I'm not very good at kneeling. The suit … well, it has this little glitch, and I have no plans to fix it_." His dark gaze locked on Loki's. "_It's easy to fix a suit. Not like people. I still don't understand some of 'em. Like Capsicle._" He rolled his eyes. "_A walking, talking God Bless America. But he gets the job done. Can you_?"

"I don't think you'll be disappointed," Loki said, strolling toward the bar.

Stark sniffed ostentatiously. "_I'm getting a whiff of something. Not just bullshit. Something bigger. And meaner. And greener. Something you'll understand, because you've got it inside you already_."

Loki had no time to dodge the brute. But as it charged him, teeth bared, enormous fists clenched, it stopped. And walked right into him. And _becam_e him.

_H_e was the monster. It was stretching him from inside out, bursting his skin, covering him in his own blood.

With a cry he couldn't smother, Loki sat up on the bed, his heart pounding in his throat. He held up his hands. They hadn't changed. His skin was intact. There was no blood on him anywhere.

But the monster was still there. Inside him. Hitler. Pol Pot. Stalin. Ratko Mladic. Robert Mugabe. A whole roster of mass murderers and conquerors and tyrants. All mortal.

But there were other names. Asgardian names. Names Loki had known all his life.

His own.

_We're all the same_.


	3. Chapter 3

That was when Loki stopped fighting. He let the Voices come without denying their final words. Men and women of every stripe and profession and character and age. All asking the same question.

_Why_?

And then, the children … not many, but enough. Enough to shatter him with their high, bright piping, with their sadness of futures lost.

And forgiveness. They, more than any of the others, forgave him.

Redemption was a concept of mortal religion. So was absolution. But Loki no longer saw that bright, hard, implacable line between himself and those he had forced to kneel and wished to rule.

"_Courage, Brother_," Thor had said. "_But I know you have that in abundance. Now learn mercy, toward yourself and others. Atone for your evil acts. Become what you were meant to be._"

And what was that? What happened to him when he lost the only self he knew? He had told Natasha the truth: nothing could wipe out that much red. "_The horrors are a part of you, and they will never go away._"

Loki's ledger was gushing red. And hatred no longer sustained him. It was no longer food and drink to him, the driving force behind every act.

He saw himself clearly for the first time since he had learned what Odin had tried to hide from him. Not the Jotun skin, not the red eyes or the facial markings that stood out in such high relief . Only himself.

_Have I ever been sane?_

Were there any pages in the ledger that were not yet spattered with blood?

#

It might have been days, months, years. Loki lost any desire to track the passage of time. His life fell back into a routine. The Voices came less frequently now, and he was learning to bear them calmly. To listen instead of merely hear. He was very good at listening when he chose to be. And they became a kind of company, a relief from the loneliness.

Still, it was too late. He knew that. His fundamental nature could no more be altered than the All-father's lost eye restored. Than he could undo what had been done on Midgard.

"_No. You can't change what happened. But you can stop. Most of them never do, until someone else stops them_."

Captain America crouched on the top of a burning vehicle, his shield at his side, his gaze earnest and steady.

"_I had to learn how to look at things a different way_," Steve Rogers said. "_I lost everything. I became something I never thought I could be, and then the things that really mattered to me were taken. I wanted to pity myself._" He gazed at something Loki couldn't see. "_But I got over it. There were just too many more important things to do than dwell on the past._"

"And those you killed in your war … did they deserve it?" Loki asked.

"_Not all of them_." His eyes grew sad. "_But we had to stop the murderers, or they were going to keep on murdering_."

Loki kicked at a piece of blackened metal and looked up at the sky. The smoke was clearing. The Chitauri were gone. The wormhole was closed. Even Thor …

"Do you know what Stark calls you?" he asked.

"_You mean besides Capsicle_?" Rogers shook his head. "_Some sense of humor the guy has, I'll give him that. He can be kind of a pain in the …_" He broke off with a rueful smile.

"He called you 'a walking, talking God Bless America,'" Loki said.

"_Yeah. I seem to get a lot of that these days. But I don't mind. A long time ago, someone gave me a chance to do something with my life. To fight for what's good in the world. Someone had faith in me and gave me a hand up. It's amazing what that kind of faith can do for you_."

"Faith," Loki said, an edge of scorn in his voice. Scorn lacking all conviction. "A concept built on wishful thinking, not reality. Your naïveté is almost touching."

"_I'd rather be naïve than live my life believing they way you do_," Rogers said. "_With faith, there's hope. You did some bad things, Loki. You can't take them back. But maybe you can be forgiven_. _Someday_."

"If I wanted forgiveness, I—"

Loki opened his eyes. The ceiling was as it had ever been. The walls were pale, featureless.

The Voices had gone. Every one of them.

And they had taken something with them. Loki lay very still, his mind blank. Without the Voices, he had ceased to exist. He was empty. Nothing was left of himself. Nothing but a husk. No contempt, no hatred, no … faith. All was white, a silent white blank inside his skull.

It was as if he were waiting to be reborn, as he had been rebuilt from the lost fragments of himself after the fall, base metal forged in fire and agony and unspeakable pleasures.

The empty husk went about its business. It ate and drank and relieved itself, it paced and moved its muscles and kept itself fit and clean. It never touched the books. It put on fresh clothing when it came. It never touched the books, though they came with the usual regularity.

It was a kind of peace. Loki was aware enough to know that much. He wasn't afraid. Not of the Other, or Thanos. They couldn't touch him. The husk might be hurt, but nothing could penetrate the whiteness. He began to forget. Laufey. Sif. The All-Father. Frigga.

Thor.

Loki's ears no longer heard. His eyes no longer saw. So it was that he heard and saw nothing until the stranger stood in the cell with him, very still, watching. Looking at something Loki couldn't see, because it didn't exist.

"Brother," the voice said.

The stranger resolved into a tall and muscular body, gleaming armor, red cloak, flowing blond hair. And a face. A face Loki knew. A face that meant something. Something important.

"Do you not know me, Brother?" the stranger said.

_Brother_. "Who are you?" Loki asked, feeling the white slipping out of his skull like mist driven away by a warm South wind.

"Thor." The man moved closer, curled his fingers around the back of Loki's neck. A gesture Loki recognized. He stiffened.

"Do not touch me," he said, though his voice was hardly more than a whisper, unused and as nearly forgotten as the rest.

"Think, Loki," Thor-the-brother said. "Look at me. _Look_ at me."

Loki tried to jerk away. He didn't want this. He didn't want to remember. He wanted to sink back into the husk and remain there.

But Thor-the-brother wouldn't let him. He was too strong.

"If you think I'll permit you such an easy escape, think again," Thor said. "I see sanity in your eyes, Brother. I _see_ you. And as long as I see you, you can't disappear."

How could this man know so much? Loki tried to focus on the blue eyes, so intently searching his. A face as strong as the hand on Loki's neck. Uncompromising. Warm with ...

"Thor?" he said, a child who had been searching for something lost and found in a place utterly unexpected.

"Yes, Loki. Thor." He shook Loki gently. "You come back now. You come home."

"Home?" Loki repeated, bewildered, almost frightened again. His heart was breaking open. It hurt. "Where is it?"

Thor cursed, and Loki had a vague memory of equally inventive curses on other occasions, savage and crude enough to make him wince.

"Surely," Loki said, "even a man with a head of solid steel would be more inventive. As I—" He frowned. "As I recall, your head is filled only with scrap iron."

Thor's face lit up, golden light, not white. "Loki. Brother. You _do _know me."

Loki did. He swallowed, the numbness leaving his body. The blood began to flow, the nerves awaken, the memories ….

The memories. The Voices. He wrenched out of Thor's grasp and covered his ears.

"Brother," Thor said gently. "Something _has_ changed. As I always hoped."

"No." Loki retreated until the back of his knees struck the bed. "You should be dead. I killed you."

"You failed," Thor said. "I'm here, Loki. With you."

Loki's legs gave way. He crumpled onto the bed and covered his face with his hands. "Forgive me," he rasped. "Forgive me."

His brother dropped to his knees , his head level with Loki's. "I always did," he said. "I told you so. Have you forgotten that, too?"

"It isn't enough," Loki said. "It will never be enough."

Loki brushed Loki's hair out of his face. "Someone will need to cut your hair. This is somewhat better than the rat's nest you sported on Midgard, but—"

"Midgard," Loki whispered. "The others …"

"They are still dead," Thor said, pitiless and gentle. "Do you finally understand what you've done?"

_Did he_? Loki might have laughed, but he seemed to have forgotten how_. No. I understand nothing_.

But he did. There was no escaping this new knowledge of himself. The horror of it, fully revealed to him at last.

By _them_.

"Why are you here?" he asked, turning his face away.

"To bring you out."

"What?"

"To take you home, for a little while."

_A little while? _

"I have no place among you," Loki said, staring at the wall over Loki's head. "I never did."

"You _always_ did," Thor said. "You just didn't know it. And I didn't see how you suffered. Not only when we were boys, but after your fall. I should fully have acknowledged that something had changed you, almost beyond hope of recovery."

"Spare me your pity," Loki snapped.

"At least I can reach you now," Thor said, sighing. "The rest may take time. But not here. Not in this place."

"My punishment …"

"I will not lie to you, Brother. It hasn't ended. It's only been altered, and any slip on your part will send you back for your full sentence."

Loki could make no sense of Thor's words. "How … long have I been here?"

"Only a year, as mortals reckon it."

"Only that?" Loki asked, bewildered again.

" I and our mother petitioned the All-father to give you a final opportunity to make some atonement, reparations for your evil acts on Midgard. If you succeed to his satisfaction, the remainder of your sentence will be commuted."

"Atonement?" Loki repeated, as dull-witted as any bilgesnipe."Why did you petition for my release?"

"Our mother had dreams. She heard voices. They told her to give you another chance. They told her you had changed, that you had come out of your madness."

Loki searched Thor's eyes, daring his brother to look deep. "And seeing me now, you believe this?"

"If I did not, I would turn and leave now."

"These … reparations …" Loki pressed his palm to his forehead, his thoughts a nest of poisonous serpents.

"We can discuss that later," Thor said. He grabbed Loki's chin and turned his brother's ace toward his again. "All you need know is that I have taken full responsibility for you. If you fail me, I will be exiled. Permanently."

"You would do that?" Loki asked, unwilling to believe such a mad claim.

"It was my choice."

"I _will_ fail you," Loki said, his eyes stinging.

Thor pulled Loki into his arms. "No," he said. "Because you love me too much to take me down with you again. You said so, before we parted."

_Love_, Loki thought. Could there still be such a thing left inside him?

"I have never been sincere," Loki said, his chin resting on Thor's broad shoulder. "You reminded me, before I—"

"I was wrong," Thor said. "It was a very poor jest. But sincerity is not enough."

"I will fail," Loki said, his voice breaking.

"I believe in you, Brother. Our mother believes you can find balance, a place of truce, as she calls it. No one expects to change the nature with which you were born."

"A frost giant?"

"We would not have you be other than you were before—"

"Before I learned what I was."

"You have only one mother, and one brother," Thor said.

Loki pulled free of his brother's arms. "And one father?" he asked, finally able to laugh.

"Odin is …" For the first time, Thor looked bewildered himself. "I can make no sense of his thoughts. He agreed to listen to our plea, but what he feels …."

"No need to tell me," Loki said, surprised at his lack of bitterness.

"Perhaps, in time …."

"If you ask too much," Loki said, looking away, "you will get nothing."

"But I will ask much of you, Brother. I will demand much, so I won't lose you again." He smiled. In spite of everything. "You will have your jests, and I well know you are capable of spite, as I will always be"—he grimaced—" hot of temper. Lacking in … proper consideration of my actions." He took Loki's shoulder and shook him gently. "You will doubtless cause trouble. But you won't slaughter innocents. And you'll always come back to us. _That_ is in your nature."

"And my ambition?"

"Perhaps one day, when Odin steps down from the throne, you may become a more worthy king than I. But you will have to prove it, for I won't easily be fooled again. Even by you."

Loki had good reason to doubt Thor's claims. But his brother's stubborn, foolish, belief … faith … in Loki gave him firm ground to stand on when he never thought he could find it again. When he thought the Voices would never let him. Perhaps he could make peace with them. And himself.

"What now?" he asked.

"Home, to Asgard. House arrest, until the details of your remaining punishment can be arranged. But you can have visitors. Our mother longs to see you."

"She, and no one else," Loki said, meeting Thor's eyes again. "You once told me that everyone grieved for me when you …" _Hurled me into the void_. But that wasn't right. "Before I let go."

"You remember," Thor said. "I never pushed you, Brother."

"No," Loki said slowly. "But I knew your claim of this 'grieving' to be a lie. As now I know it to be the truth that no one will welcome my return save you and Frigga."

"The girl, Adisla, who now serves our mother," Thor said. "She has not forgotten you. Nor has the boy you taught to ride, or the others you helped when you were younger."

"A long list of friends indeed," Loki said.

"Enough self-pity, Brother," Thor said, rising. "The man you were on Midgard deserves no friends. This is your final chance." He hesitated. "There have been a few changes in Asgard since you came here. The Lady Jane …"

"Your mortal lover. Of course."

"The Bifrost has been restored to allow limited travel between the Realms. We have an arrangement. She spends half her time in Asgard, and the rest on Midgard. She is now preparing to return to her world."

"Ah," Loki said, with heavy irony. "Another who no doubt looks forward to my return."

"I have spoken to her at length about you," Thor said, utterly serious. "She is a remarkable and courageous woman. She trusts my judgment in this, but I think it would be best that you not meet."

"Do you remember what I said before you shattered the Bifrost?" Loki asked, unable to stop taunting Thor even in the face of his brother's willingness to forgive. "'You will never see her again.'"

"There were other things you could have said, Brother. But you thought of my loss."

_Did I_? Loki thought. How could such a thought have entered his mind? He had merely meant to save the Bifrost by using Thor's sentiment for the mortal female. Without the rainbow bridge, Asgard was cut off from every other realm.

And Jotunheim would survive, when he so very much wanted it to die. And all his "people" with it. Asgard's enemies, gone at last.

"I said I would pay your lady a visit," Loki said.

But Thor would not be provoked. "You would not have harmed her, then. After your fall …" He frowned in a way that made clear he would have taken such an act very seriously indeed. Perhaps _that_ would have moved him to kill his adopted brother.

If Loki had no other hope, he would know how to die.


	4. Chapter 4

"Stay away from Jane, Loki," Thor said. "Neither of you will be in Asgard long."

"So where is the remainder of my sentence to be carried out?" Loki asked.

"Not here," Thor said. "Wait."

"You may have forgotten I have nowhere to go."

Thor didn't answer. He stepped outside the cell and returned a moment later with the familiar and much-despised shackles.

"No muzzle?" Loki asked, staring at the nearly unbreakable chain rope between the cuffs.

"Not unless you make it necessary."

Thor waited, and after a moment Loki extended his arms. Thor fixed the shackles with obvious reluctance.

There were many things Loki might have done once they left the cell. He still had the means to trick Thor. He always had, and always would. He could engineer some kind of escape once they reached Asgard, go into hiding until he gained access to the restored Bifrost. He knew many places to hide, even in the palace. He had learned very young how to find ways to be alone.

_And then? Where do I go_? _Back to the Other_?

He no longer feared what _they_ could do to him. He was prepared to die rather than let them influence him again, even if he had to trick them into doing it for him.

He didn't _want_ to die. But only death could silence the Voices.

"Let us go," Thor said. He gestured Loki ahead of him, and Loki walked out into the bitter wind. He raised his head, breathing it in with something very like joy.

Freedom. Temporary, perhaps. But real.

_You stole more than our freedom_, the Voices said.

Loki shivered violently, and Thor rested his hand on his shoulder.

"We'll soon be home," the big man said, and looked skyward. In a few moments they were on one of the palace terraces, the expected cohort of heavily-armed guards standing by, gazes fixed straight ahead. But Loki could feel what they would not show. He jerked up his chin.

For a while, he had been their king.

"Come, Brother," Thor said. He took Loki's arm and guided him past the guards, who fell in behind them. Painfully aware of everything around him, of each familiar column or frieze or intricate pattern on the tile floor beneath his feet, Loki watched and listened for observers, for snickers and catcalls and curses. But evidently Thor had cleared the way for them, because they met no one but other guards until entered the confinement level of the palace complex, where Loki had been held before his trial.

Loki slowed, resisting Thor's gentle push. There was no reason to do so. Any bare cell in Asgard was better than the one on Desolation.

But here they could all see him. Witness his weakness, all over again. He would be utterly exposed, powerless. As he had been ever since Thor had dragged him back to Asgard.

"Have no fear," Thor said. He urged Loki along a side corridor and to the entrance to yet another cell, this one with a heavy door but no transparent wall for constant observation. When Thor opened the door, Loki saw that the room was furnished with something better than a hard surface for a bed. There were furs heaped upon it, and two chairs to either side, neither one intended to imitate a block of ice or stone.

But there were also the shackle rings sunk into the wall.

As soon as they were inside, Thor released the bonds from Loki's wrists and tossed them and their chain onto the floor. "If you give me your word," he said solemnly, "if you swear to me as we once did as children, I will leave you unchained."

Loki stared at the ceiling. Still Thor would accept his bond. It was madness.

_Is it madness? Is it?_

He met Thor's gaze. "I give my word."

"Good," Thor said. "Our mother will see you soon. Very few know you are in the palace, and I would keep this quiet until there is no further reason to do so."

"Because I won't remain in Asgard long," Loki said, probing for answers.

"We will speak again soon."

Thor picked up the shackles and went to the door. "Remember your word," he said sternly, and left the cell.

Loki was very still for a time, aware of all the subtle signs that he was not alone: the occasional murmur of voices carried to his cell by some trick of the palace acoustics, the slight scrape of metal on metal as the guards outside shifted ever so slightly; the warmth, the subtle scent of life itself.

Turning to the bed, Loki buried his hands in the furs. The sheer luxury of them, of their warmth and texture, almost overwhelmed him. He had always known himself to be a sensualist, unlike Thor. There had been no indulging such proclivities on Desolation.

_Senses belong to the living_, the Voices said.

Loki sank to his knees beside the bed, pulling the furs with him.

#

"Loki."

The gentle touch on his shoulder woke him, and only the familiar voice stopped him from leaping to his feet, ready to fight. Fight the enemies in his dreams, all of whom wore his face. Distorted, monstrous, filled with hate.

Frigga touched his cheek. She made no attempt to hide her tears.

"I never thought to see you again," she said.

Loki released his grip on the furs and turned on his knees to face her. She had joined him on the floor, her skirts swept aside, as she had always done when they had played at draughts and hnefatafl.

"It was only a thousand years, Mother," he said, hardly able to control his voice. "You would still have been here."

"Yes," she said. "But I feared you would not have survived."

"They left me no means to end my life," he said.

"Loki, Loki." She pulled him close. "Madness took you once. A different madness would have taken you in that cell. I feared …"

"That there would be nothing left of me?" Loki asked, touching her cheek in return. "Would that not have been better for all concerned?"

"If you had truly lost yourself, you could never have made things right again."

Loki rose, pulling Frigga to her feet with him. "Thor spoke similar words. Atonement. Reparations. He did not explain himself."

"It was enough to bring you home, for now. To allow you to recover, in case you—"

"Found this new punishment too onerous, and attempted to escape?"

"No," she said. "I had dreams, my son. I know you heard them, as I did. You know what they portended."

Loki put as much distance between them as he could. "I don't know what you speak of," he said.

"The voices. The voices of those you killed on Midgard."

Loki wrapped his arms around his chest, recognizing the futility of denial. "Odin's doing?" he asked.

"I do not know. But it was these voices that told me there might be hope for you."

Loki shook his head violently. "You spoke of this once before. You, and Thor. A child's drea—"

"_Why did you kill my Daddy_?" the child's voice said.

"I hear them," Frigga said, moving close to him again, refusing to heed the warning so clear in his stance and words. "They will be your salvation."

Salvation. Was that what he wanted? Or was he merely afraid of being haunted for the rest of his long life?

"How?" he asked, sounding pitiful to his own ears. Defeated. "How, Mother?"

"You will return to Midgard," Thor said, entering the cell. "And you will do everything within your power to restore what you destroyed."

Loki stared at his brother in astonishment. "I cannot restore life. Even the All-father is incapable of bringing back those long dead."

"You cannot restore the lives you took," Thor said, a grim set to his mouth. "But you can live among the mortals as I did, without your magic, without any advantage save your jotun and Asgardian strength. You will be given sufficient funds to survive. And then it will be your choice how to make use of this second chance you have been given."

Loki broke out into harsh laughter. "You mock me, Brother." He turned to Frigga. "I would have expected better of you, in spite of my manifold 'sins.'"

"We do not mock you, my son," Frigga said. "This is to be the remainder of your punishment. If you, in the All-father's judgment, make sufficient amends to the people of Midgard, your sentence shall be commuted, your acts against Thor forgotten."

"The All-father's judgment," Loki said, his lip curling. "He will never find anything I do sufficient for forgiveness."

"You're wrong, Brother," Thor said. "When he sent me to Midgard—"

"How many mortals had you killed? I could bring them all back, and Odin would never forget that I tried to kill _you._ That for a time, _I_ was king."

Thor bowed his head. "You try to rouse my anger, Loki, but I will not be provoked again. I do not deny that what you must do will be both difficult and painful. Difficult because you will be forced to prove that you have changed, and painful once you begin to learn to accept mortals as your equals, deserving of compassion."

"Equals," Loki muttered, staring blindly at the bed. "And how shall I avoid the mortal authorities who will be so eager to subject me to their own brand of punishment? S.H.I.E.L.D, and the Avengers, and others like them? I would particularly prefer to avoid reacquaintance with the green brute."

"They know nothing of this, nor will they," Thor said. "Though you will be stripped of magic, you will still have the means of obscuring your face from any who would steal this chance from you."

"Including the Other?"

Frigga and Thor exchanged glances. "We have kept watch," Frigga said. "Nothing more has been seen or heard of the Chitauri. But they will not be permitted within a galaxy of Midgard, even if all Asgard must go to war to prevent it."

"So it appears I'm safe," Loki said with heavy irony.

"From the Chitauri and their masters," Thor said. "But you can be hurt. You can die. You will have no tricks except those devised by your own cleverness. You alone will determine your fate."

"And if I merely play at this redemption, simply to escape the remainder of my sentence?"

"Odin will know," Frigga said.. "He knows you, Loki, even if you reject him."

Loki had lost the will to mock the absurdity of her words. "And the length of this new sentence?" he asked.

"One mortal year."

"What?"

"That is all," Frigga said. "But do not rejoice. It is little enough time to do what will be required of you."

It was all like a dream to Loki, as much as anything he had experienced in his cell on Desolation. "When am I to go?" he asked.

"You will be given two days here to prepare your mind and heart," Frigga said with all her relentless compassion. "But you will not be left alone. Your brother and I will do all we can to give you strength for what lies ahead. And remind you of what you were before."

_Before_. "Incapable of sincerity," Thor had once told him. Why should they want that old Loki back? Why should _he_?

He met Thor's gaze. "I suppose you'll expect me to renew my oath not to escape when I'm sent to Midgard."

"Yes, Brother," Thor said. "And you will give it, because there is no place on Midgard you can flee where either Odin or Heimdall cannot find you."

_Of course not_, Loki thought, reminded that his hatred for Heimdall was hardly less than that he felt for Odin. "I presume I will be under constant observation?"

"Not constant," Thor said. "But you will not be left entirely alone. "

"That comforts me greatly," Loki said.

"Under the circumstances, Brother, sarcasm suits you ill," Thor said, taking a step toward him. "If you cannot—"

"Do you agree?" Frigga said, stepping between them. "Loki, will you do this?"

"Or return to a millennium of captivity?" Loki asked. "You already know my answer."

"Then be warned, Brother," Thor said. "As much as I love you, even I cannot save you if you fail in this."

"You need not remind of the penalty you must pay if I _do_ fail," Loki said.

"Then succeed," Thor said. "Not for me, but for yourself."

"And for the voices," Frigga said, running her delicate fingers through the strands of Loki's loose hair.

Voices that might at last leave him be, Loki thought. He took Frigga by the shoulders. "Thank you, Mother," he said. "For speaking to Odin on my behalf, even if I would have spared you the humiliation."

"It was no humiliation." Frigga said. "Odin is my husband. And still your father."

Unwilling to argue with her again, Loki kissed her on both cheeks. Then he stepped around her to face his brother.

"Thor," he said. "You have a bad habit of humbling me. I do not appreciate this annoying tendency in your character. But nevertheless …." He swallowed back all the emotions that warred for supremacy within him. "I thank you."

"Save your thanks," Thor said, though his rough voice held no anger. "I will accept it when you return victorious."

_Victorious_, Loki thought. But not over mankind. Over himself.

#

When Thor took him to the Bifrost—the bridge and observatory still not wholly mended, but guarded once again by its tireless sentinel, Heimdall, who would not look at Loki at all—they were not alone. There were the ubiquitous guards, of course. But Frigga was there, and the child Adisla, and the boy Loki had once taught to ride, holding the reins of Loki's favorite mount.

And, some distance behind, stood Sif and the Warriors Three. They didn't speak to Loki, nor he to them. By unspoken agreement, they pretended each was invisible to the other.

But it was all a farce. Indifferent thought they might pretend to be, Thor's comrades would have strong feelings about this moment. Disapproval that he had been given another "chance." Bewilderment, perhaps, that Thor had so completely forgiven him. Hatred.

Lady Sif's relentless graze burned into Loki's back like one of the guard's staffs at full power. Loki found it difficult to decide which was worse.

"I know you would rather have been here alone," Thor said, standing beside him, "but my friends have sworn to aid me, and so …"

"I presume it will do me no good to ask you to send them away."

"Not this time, Brother. They will be among those visiting you on Midgard."

Loki turned on Thor, fists clenched. "You will send them as my … baby sitters? Do you think, powerless or not, that I haven't the ability to evade them?"

" I said you would not be observed every moment," Thor said, all stern elder brother again, "and they will not conceal themselves when they come. Nor will I. Our purpose will be to see that you are making no attempt to regain the power you sought on Midgard."

"And report on my progress?"

"They will not interfere."

So many things went through Loki's mind then, so many curses and spiteful jabs at his brother and his quartet of blindly loyal minions. But he held his tongue. In a moment of weakness, he had broken and begged Thor's forgiveness like a hound cringing at its master's feet.

But he had meant those words, no matter how much he despised the way he had conveyed them. He hated Thor, and he loved him. And he had to see this through, prove himself "worthy"—not in Odin's sight, it was far too late for that—but to an extent sufficient that he would be spared what he dreaded most.

He glanced down at his clothing. Midgardian, with no trace of Asgardian style. "Middle-class," he had been told. He would not be permitted to create illusions and dress himself as he saw fit. He would have to enter shops where ready-made clothing was sold—the same clothing any mortal with sufficient funds could purchase—and blend in among those same mortals as if he were one of them.

Thor had had already determined where he was to live, and Loki well knew his habitation would be as far from a palace as his plain trousers and shirt and woolen "sweater" were like his prince's garments and armor. In fact, he had been told that living quarters in the city to which he had done so much damage were very dear in mortal terms, and that he was fortunate to have an "apartment" at all.

Every day he would be required to look upon the place where he had wrought so much mortal suffering. He would have no occupation save that he made for himself.

The occupation of atonement , and his own "salvation."

"You are fortunate the All-father agreed not to send you naked and without any means of support beyond your own wits," Thor said, as if he'd read Loki's thoughts.

_At least you would be alive_, the Voices taunted him.

"I am sensible of Odin's forbearance toward his pet Jotun," Loki said. "But if he were to deposit me at one of the Earth's poles, I would doubtless survive well enough."

Thor looked more than a little uncomfortable, reminded that his "brother" was not his kin at all, that his own father had raised Loki on a lie. But once again, Loki found that he took no satisfaction in Thor's pain, when once he would have reveled in it.

As he would once have scorned Thor's forgiveness.

"What else must I know, Brother?" he asked.

The tension in Thor's jaw eased. "In your new dwelling, you will find what you need to begin a life on Earth," he said. "Your funds will be limited. You may spend them as you choose, but you will not be given more once they are gone unless you choose to work for them in Midgardian terms, as most mortals do. Any attempt to increase your wealth by criminal means or acts against Midgardian law will return you to Asgard and your original punishment."

"You refer specifically to the laws of the United States of America."

"Since you will be confined there, yes."

Loki understood that it was his responsibility to learn those laws, beyond the ones he had so lavishly broken on Midgard. Not only laws written down in mortal books, but the unwritten ones as well.

Even Thor could not possibly know them all. But Loki had already experienced the bitter taste of Midgardian "morality."

"And if it is necessary to break some minor law to do what you would consider 'good?'" he asked Thor.

"You must rely on your own judgment, Loki. That is part of the test. Each of your acts will be weighed in the balance."

"That is clear enough," Loki said grimly.

"If I could help you—" Thor began.

Loki stepped out of his reach, fearing another touch. Fearing what it would do to the control he gripped so tightly.

"See to your own concerns, Brother," Loki said. "I will do everything possible not to bring harm to your pet mortals."

Thor looked away, his jaw tightening again. Frigga drew near and took Loki into her arms. He stiffened, but she refused to release him. She pulled his head down-and down again, since Loki was by far the taller—and kissed his forehead.

"I know you will not fail us," she whispered. "You will come back. Come back to _me_, Loki, as you once were. As you must be again."

"I would not have you disappointed, Mother," Loki said, setting her back. "Do not expect too much of your Jotun foundling. I am no longer a child."

"But you are," she said, cupping his cheek. "You and Thor both. In so many ways."

It was the worst thing she might have said, but Loki bit back his scornful retort. "Farewell, Mother," he said, backing away. "Do not think of me. Celebrate the happiness of your true son, content in the arms of his mortal lover."

"His happiness?" she said, unexpected coldness in his voice. "There is only one way to restore that, Loki. And only you can do it."

"Are you ready?" Thor asked, mercifully sparing Loki more of Frigga's cruel tenderness and torturous love. The love he didn't deserve, and never had.

He glanced at Heimdall. "At least _I_ have warning," he said.

Thor didn't misunderstand him. "Perhaps that is even worse, Brother," he said. He nodded to Heimdall, who preceded them into the half-repaired observatory. It was already aimed at Midgard.

Loki took his place, staring into the eye of his destiny. The Voices were silent. Waiting. He wondered how many more would come to him once he was among the mortals, once they knew how easily and readily he could be punished by the convoluted workings of his own mind.

"Brother," Thor said, laying his hand on Loki's shoulder as he had done so many times throughout their lives. "Remember that I forgive you. That I love you. That you travel with all the hope I and our Mother can send with you."

The tightness in Loki's throat made it very difficult for him to answer. "Hope," he said, "is such a very mortal word."

"Perhaps because you have never really known it. And that is why I gift it to you, with all my heart."

He turned Loki around and embraced him, nearly crushing Loki's ribs. Loki closed his eyes, trying to ignore the sting of moisture under his lids, the desperate longing to return Thor's embrace with all his strength. And his heart.

But he only endured, and when Thor released him he smiled with all the cynicism life had taught him.

"Farewell, Prince of Asgard," he said.

Then there was a brilliant flash of light, and all Loki had ever loved was gone.


End file.
